Outdoors

Let’s not gut the target identification law

Not that many years ago, the woods of Maine were far less safe during hunting season than they are today. Back in 1952 — the worst in a string of bad years — 70 people suffered gunshot wounds related to hunting. Nineteen of those wounds proved fatal.

Through the 1970s, Maine averaged 37 gunshot “incidents” and four fatalities per year.

That scary trend began to change in 1973, when the state began requiring deer hunters to wear blaze orange clothing while deer hunting.

But the real catalyst for change came in 1988, when a Hermon mother of twins was shot and killed while she stood in her own backyard.

The Karen Wood case drew national attention, and the eventual acquittal of the hunter involved prompted state lawmakers to pass legislation that was long overdue.

Maine’s target identification law was born.

In short, the law puts the onus for safety where it belongs — on the hunter — and requires hunters to know what the target is and what lies beyond that target.

Gone, forever, was the “oops” defense that had handcuffed prosecutors across the state.

I didn’t know anyone was there. I was shooting at a deer.

Back in 2008, Paul Jacques, deputy commissioner of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, told me how convoluted the state’s hunting laws were before Karen Wood was shot.

“Now, you have to remember, at one time if you wounded somebody while hunting, it was a mandatory 10-year loss of license. If you wounded them,” Jacques said at the time. “But if you killed them, and you said you thought it was a deer when you shot them, it was a $200 fine and there wasn’t even a jail sentence imposed.”

That was the “oops” defense at work.

In the years since that strict target identification law was enacted, the change has been monumental.

Nowadays, if 10 shooting incidents are reported, it’s been a bad year. And during an eight-year span from 2001 to 2008, just four fatalities were reported, about as many as you would have expected in any November week back in 1952.

Last week this newspaper ran a heartwarming story about a turkey hunter who was shot by a friend, and who has since forgiven that buddy for the incident that cost him an eye.

He doesn’t want his friend prosecuted.

The victim’s sentiments are touching. His attitude shows us how trivial the petty problems that many of us fixate on really are. His grace teaches us that we all could strive to be more forgiving in our own lives.

With that said, failing to prosecute the shooter would send a horrible message to the state’s hunters, and to the nonhunting public.

Think for a moment: In all but the rarest of cases, when a hunter shoots another person, it is not intentional.

They did not head out the door intending to fire an errant shot that caused injury … or death.